2014 is shaping up to be a banner year for bluegrass music. Some of the best-known bands are in the studio now working on new projects. So are some fine up-and-comers.

I started to make a list of new music that I was waiting to come to my mailbox, and as the list grew, I decided to share it with Bluegrass Today readers.

It’s not all-encompassing. I’m sure there are some great CDs due out this year that I’m overlooking here. It is a very subjective list. Your mileage may vary. Feel free to use the comments section to add your favorites.

I’m using just two guidelines: The music can’t be officially released yet (but is due in 2014) and it has to have a connection to bluegrass. The selections are listed alphabetically.

David Morris is a Washington, D.C.-based journalist, songwriter and upright bass player. He has spent much of his career as a wire service political reporter, including nearly 14 years with The Associated Press and a stint as chief White House correspondent for Bloomberg News, and is now a senior editor for Kiplinger Washington Editors.

Last week we reran a column of mine about aggressive song-pitching, and I got this email: Hi Chris, I’m a songwriter who just moved to Nashville, and so far I can’t complain. I’ve gotten a song recorded by the bluegrass band Melon Rydge, and on […]

Driving home yesterday from the Bristol Bluegrass Spring Fest, I was struck by one overwhelming sentiment. What a joy it is to live in a world where Larry Sparks is a superstar. It may not be true everywhere, everytime – I’m sure Mr. Sparks can make it […]

No matter where you may live, it’s always good news when a new bluegrass event launches, just as it feels like the loss of a friend when one closes down. Here in Bristol, Virginia this weekend, we’re watching the first iteration of a new festival, the […]

How often do we discover bright young talent in family bands? The dynamic seems to entice and encourage the growth of budding pickers, who often develop rapidly in this supportive environment. It seems we never lack for examples, and here’s another. The Snyder Family has […]

Adkins & Loudermilk hit with a bang when they announced their partnership back in November of 2013, with reverberations sounding across bluegrass music. Edgar Loudermilk left his position on bass and harmony vocals with IIIrd Tyme Out, and Dave Adkins dissolved his own band to […]

On this day… On March 30, 1935, Paul Williams was born in Wytheville, Virginia. He was raised in eastern Tennessee. “Williams” was actually the stage name for Paul McCoy Humphrey. It was the name that he adopted when he joined the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers in […]

Keith Little, much acclaimed singer, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and performer who has recorded and toured with the likes of Rose Maddox, California bluegrass pioneer Vern Williams, Dolly Parton, Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder, The Chieftains, David Grisman and Peter Rowan, has graduated to leading his own […]

With this profile of Frank Solivan we welcome Brian Paul Swenk to our roster of writers here at Bluegrass Today. Brian is a banjo player and bluegrass nut in Richmond, VA who performs with Big Daddy Love, a multi-genre touring group based in Winston-Salem, NC. Bluegrass music, like […]

Tim O’Brien, apparently, never sits still. But Bluegrass Today was fortunate to catch up with him twice in recent days, once over the weekend before his solo set at the DC Bluegrass Union festival in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, and on the phone a few […]

Being a bluegrass fan can be a curious thing. Some folks are born into it, listening to mom and dad play Flatt & Scruggs before they’re even out of the hospital. Others sort of just fall into it – perhaps they heard it on the radio, […]

It’s hard to keep a good man down in bluegrass music (although we all do like to be lonesome now and then), and radio broadcaster Larry Roberts is a prime example of that. Roberts has been a DJ for almost thirty years, and for the […]

Bluegrass is sometimes viewed as music for old fogies. The emphasis on tradition, the lack of electric instruments, the sheer lonesomeness of it all – it’s not Katy Perry or Justin Beiber, that’s for sure. In the past several years, however, it seems like more […]